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<!–> [–><!–>President Trump's new tariffs on more than 100 countries used the same simple formula to calculate the rate for each of them.–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>The formula’s central value is the trade deficit, the difference between imports and exports between each country and the United States, for the year 2024.–><!–> –> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –> <!–> […] More
Grocery shoppers are likely to feel the impact of the Trump administration’s sweeping new tariffs before April is over. And the first place they’ll feel it is in parts of the store where the inventory has to move fast.In the produce aisle, food analysts said Thursday, expect small price increases on everyday purchases like bananas from Guatemala and grapes from Peru, countries whose exports to the United States will incur 10 percent tariffs when the new fees go into effect on Saturday. A separate round of reciprocal tariffs on 57 countries will follow on Wednesday.The seafood counter may hold even worse surprises. Grocery stores sell a lot of shrimp from Vietnam, which President Trump hit with a 46 percent reciprocal tariff, and India, with a 26 percent reciprocal tariff.Soon, analysts say, price hikes will arrive for staples like sugar and coffee, which is already priced at a historic high. Specialty coffee beans might eventually cost consumers 10 percent to 35 percent more than before the tariffs, bean buyers predicted.Since the pandemic, grocery stores have been expanding their lines of lower-priced private-label products. Customers loved them as a way to navigate inflation, but tariffs will drive up costs.Coffee prices, which are already at historic highs, are likely to increase.Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
The New Civil Liberties Alliance — a nonprofit group that describes itself as battling “violations by the administrative state” — sued the federal government on Thursday over the means by which it imposed steep new levies on Chinese imports earlier this year.The new filing, which the group said was the first such lawsuit to challenge the Trump administration over its tariffs, set the stage for what may become a closely watched legal battle. It comes on the heels of President Trump’s separate announcement on Wednesday of broader, more extensive tariffs targeting many U.S. trading partners around the world.At issue are the tariffs that Mr. Trump announced on China in February and expanded in March. To impose them, Mr. Trump cited a 1970s law that generally grants the president sweeping powers during an economic emergency, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.Mr. Trump charged that an influx of illegal drugs from China constituted a threat to the United States. But the alliance argued in the lawsuit, on behalf of Simplified, a Pensacola, Fla.-based company, that the administration had misapplied the law. Instead, the group said the law “does not allow a president to impose tariffs,” but rather is supposed to be reserved for putting in place trade embargoes and sanctions against “dangerous foreign actors.”Port Manatee in Palmetto, Fla., on TuesdayScott McIntyre for The New York TimesMr. Trump cited that same law as one of the legal justifications for the expansive global tariffs he announced with an executive order on Wednesday. That order raised the tariff rate on China to at least 54 percent, adding new levies on top of those that the president imposed earlier this year.Mr. Trump’s new order specifically described the U.S. trade deficit with other nations as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”For now, the alliance asked the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Florida to block implementation and enforcement of the president’s earlier tariffs on China. “You can look through the statute all day long; you’re not going to see the president may put tariffs on the American people once he declares an emergency,” said John J. Vecchione, senior litigation counsel for the alliance.A spokesman for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More
Ford Motor said on Thursday that it was lowering prices on most of its vehicles to the same levels it charges employees in a bid to boost sales as President Trump’s tariffs on imported cars took effect.The tariffs began on Thursday on vehicles imported from Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany and other countries. The duties — 25 percent of the value of the vehicle in most cases — are expected to increase prices of new cars and trucks and dampen demand.About half the vehicles sold in the United States each year are produced in other countries. Mexico is the top source of those cars and Canada is among the largest. For three decades, the United States, Canada and Mexico have had a free-trade zone, and automakers have moved parts and vehicles freely among the three countries.Ford’s new program, which the company is calling “From America, for America,” could help reduce a large inventory of unsold cars. In February, Ford had more cars in inventory as measured by how many days it would take to sell them all than all but three other brands — Jaguar, Mimi and Dodge — according to Cox Automotive, a research firm.Ford’s new discounts apply to all new 2024 and 2025 vehicles, except for specialty versions of the Bronco sport-utility vehicle; the Mustang sports car; Super Duty versions of F-Series pickups; and a few other models.“Consumers will pay what we pay,” Rob Kaffl, Ford’s director of U.S. sales and dealer relations, said in a statement.The automaker also said it was extending another incentive program in which buyers of new electric models get a home charger for free, along with the cost of installation. That offer is now valid until June 30.Ford had more than 568,000 vehicles in inventory at the end of March, up about 8 percent from a year ago. More
Apple led a sell-off of tech stocks on Thursday, falling about 9 percent. Its drop was one of its steepest intraday declines since early 2019, when the company plunged 10 percent after it warned that iPhone sales in China would fall short of its expectations at the time.Wall Street analysts who follow the company have been looking for signs that Apple will be granted a tariff exemption by the White House, as it did when the Trump administration began its previous round of tariffs in 2018. But after President Trump’s news conference yesterday, there was no indication that Apple would receive any relief.As a result, many analysts were scrambling to update their forecasts on Apple’s profits. The company counts on the sale of devices for three-quarters of its nearly $400 billion in annual revenue, and it makes almost all of its iPhones, iPads and Macs overseas.The investment bank TD Cowen estimates that every 10 percent of tariffs on a product imported from China, India or Vietnam — where Apple does most of its manufacturing — would reduce the company’s profit by more than 3.5 percent. The Wall Street advisory said Apple could offset that profit decline with a 6 percent price increase for every 10 percent of tariff. Given that China is being hit with 54 percent tariffs and that it makes 90 percent of the world’s iPhones, the price of most $1,000 iPhones would jump to about $1,300. More
<!–> [–><!–> –> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–>Many of the worst-hit countries are close American allies and partners. In Southeast Asia, countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia have for years worked to turn themselves into alternatives to China for factories making the bags, electronics, shoes and auto parts that eventually end up in the United States. Now, […] More
As he unfurled his list of tariffs targeting most of America’s trading partners, President Trump repeatedly stressed that each nation’s rate was reciprocal — reflecting the barriers they had long erected to U.S. goods.He said little about the methodology behind those calculations, but a possible answer emerged later on Wednesday. Each country’s new tariff rate appeared to be derived by:Taking the trade deficit that America runs with that nation and dividing it by the exports that country sent into the United States.Then, because Mr. Trump said he was being “kind,” the final tariff number was cut in half.James Surowiecki, a financial writer and book author, first pointed out the trend in a post on X. His comment set off widespread speculation, given that Mr. Trump previously said each nation’s tariff rate would be “the combined rate of all their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating.”Those non-monetary barriers include a host of hard-to-quantify laws and other policies that Mr. Trump sees as the primary reason that the U.S. experiences such trade imbalances in the first place. (There are exceptions: Some nations face only a standard 10 percent minimum tariff starting this month.)In an earlier briefing with reporters, White House officials said the figures were calculated by the Council of Economic Advisers using well-established methodologies. The official added the model was based on the concept that the trade deficit that we have with any given country is the sum of all the unfair trade practices and “cheating” that country has done.The White House later clarified its methodology in this post. Though it uses some mathematical symbols that might be hard to parse, it confirms that the formula is essentially based on the U.S. trade deficit with a foreign country, divided by the country’s exports.“It was always going to be a really difficult exercise to come up with a very precise reciprocal tariff rate,” said Emily Kilcrease, the director of the Energy, Economics and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security and a former deputy assistant U.S. trade representative.“Given what seems to be their desire to get something out quickly, it appears what they’ve done is come up with an approximation that is consistent with their policy goals,” she said. More
President Trump’s announcement of sweeping universal and so-called reciprocal tariffs on countries around the world drew a swift rebuke on Wednesday from business groups, trade experts, Democratic lawmakers and many economists who warned that they would raise prices for American consumers and slow economic growth.“This is catastrophic for American families,” said Matt Priest, president and chief executive of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America. “We had hoped the president would take a more targeted approach, but these broad tariffs will only drive-up costs, reduce product quality and weaken consumer confidence.”Other reactions were more muted, and some positive, saying the move was long overdue.“Today is arguably the single greatest trade and economic policy action in the history of the country, and it absolutely cements President Trump’s legacy that he is trying to usher in a new golden age of economy production and prosperity,” said Nick Iacovella, executive vice president at the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a group that supports tariffs. He said the tariffs would contribute to “broadly re-industrializing the United States and creating working class jobs.”Mr. Trump insisted on Wednesday that experts had been wrong all along about his tariffs and that the anxiety about them now was misplaced. But those who will be forced to pay the tariffs were quick to raise concerns about the move, which will increase import taxes on products from some of America’s biggest trading partners including China, the European Union, Japan and India.The National Retail Federation said in a statement that the tariffs would “equal more anxiety and uncertainty for American businesses and consumers.” Tariffs are not paid for by foreign countries or suppliers but by U.S. importers, they said. They also added that “the immediate implementation of these tariffs is a massive undertaking and requires both advance notice and substantial preparation by the millions of U.S. businesses that will be directly impacted.”The National Association of Manufacturers said it was still parsing the details and exact implications of the president’s tariffs. But the group’s president, Jay Timmons, said in a statement that the high costs of new tariffs threatened “investment, jobs, supply chains and, in turn, America’s ability to outcompete other nations and lead as the pre-eminent manufacturing superpower.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
